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I turned away from him and headed toward Levi’s room. Opening his door, I saw my little guy sitting in the middle of his room playing with his toy cars while he watched his favorite movie for probably the twentieth time this week. I snuck in behind him and wrapped my arms around his small frame.
“I gotcha!” I roared, laughing menacingly.
“Not for long!” Levi squealed as he began kicking his feet, trying to wriggle away from me. I set him down and he turned to face me, wrapping his arms around my waist for a big hug.
“Did you have a good day, buddy?” I asked him, leaning down to press my lips against his forehead. Luckily, my lipstick had worn off, otherwise I would have accidentally broken my promise to him from earlier this morning.
“Yeah! Cooper is the funnest! We played superheroes and trucks, we put together my big puzzle, and he even taught me a new game!” Levi squealed in excitement.
“Oh, yeah? What game is that?”
“Hot Lava! We put the pillows from the couch on the floor and a pillow from my bed, too, and he pulled the chairs from the table and put them in the living room too so we hopped on all of them trying not to fall on the carpet because the carpet was...hot lava!” he exclaimed, his hands waving excitedly as he spoke.
His animated story hit me hard, and tears stung my eyes. I’d never see
n my baby boy this excited about anything before. Pulling myself together, I straightened my posture and blinked back the tears, furrowing my eyebrows as I stared down at his big, brown eyes.
“You two hopped on the couch pillows? You know what that means...” I brought my hands up and curled my fingers, making them look like claws, just as Levi’s face had started to falter. “That means I’m gonna get you!” I growled.
“Uh oh!” Levi screamed and bolted around me to get out of his bedroom. “Cooper! Mommy is gonna get us for hopping on the couch pillows!” He ran and hid behind Cooper’s tall, broad frame.
“Don’t worry, Little Man. I can take care of this.” Cooper narrowed his piercing eyes at me and quickly came toward me, lifting me up as though I were weightless and hanging me over his shoulder.
Laughter from the three of us filled the apartment, and I didn’t even care if we were being too noisy. This was the most fun Levi and I’d had in a long time.
Cooper carried me to the couch and drop me down onto it, then turned back toward Levi and held his hand up for a high-five. “See, buddy? We make a great team, huh?”
“Duh!” Levi smacked his hand against Cooper’s. “Mommy?” His tone had changed as he turned towards me. It was sweet and innocent, and he batted his long lashes at me.
“Yeah?” I figured it was probably on the tip of his tongue to ask to stay up late tonight since it was Friday.
“Can Cooper spend the night with me?”
Oh my God. Can Cooper what? I can’t believe this child of mine just asked that.
“Uh...um...” I failed to find a proper response because I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.
“Yeah, Samantha, can I spend the night tonight?” Cooper batted his lashes at me, playfully mocking Levi and exaggerating his pleading expression. His bottom lip puckered out and everything.
“Oh, good grief. I suppose. But, you two better go to bed when I say so.” I winked, then had to turn away from them, despite Levi’s exuberant cheers. I swallowed hard as the butterflies in my stomach began to flutter wildly.
What had I just agreed to?
***
Levi had gone to his bedroom to finish his movie while Cooper and I dined on shrimp fajitas. After we finished eating, I shooed Cooper away from cleaning up. He’d been avoiding the text messages on his phone all evening out of politeness, saying he’d call Zoey later, but he’d been preoccupied ever since so I told him to go call her, make sure everything was okay. It was the only way he’d ease his own mind.
He had already done enough for us; he didn’t need to put off his own life and responsibilities for us, too.
As I was cleaning up and putting the dishes into the dishwasher, my phone started to ring. Drying my damp hands on a towel, I picked up the phone and saw Ethan’s name lighting up the screen.
Great. What does he want?
“Hello?” I knew my tone wasn’t the most pleasant, but to be fair, it was because I was so used to being let down by him that every time he called I assumed that was what was about to happen.
“Hey, I was just calling about tomorrow night.”
I knew it, the prick is going to cancel again.
